~ The Nepalese call it Sagarmatha meaning goddess of the sky

~ The Tibetans call it Chomolungma meaning mother goddess of the universe

# The first four flags to reach the summit all arrived with the first ascentionists

~  they were the flags of
The United Nations
Great Britain
India
&
Nepal

# But was Everest climbed before

~ Perhaps Mallory & Irvine got to the top in 1924
we shall never know, but there is a fighting chance the 1924 expedition was successful, before they both died on the mountain

~ There is a growing number of people who think that these pair actually summited

~ however what actually happened in 1924 does not take anything away from the tremendous efforts of Hillary and Tenzing

With the discovery of the body of George Mallory 2000 feet below the summit
on 1 May 1999, the mystery gets deeper.
2000 feet is a long way when you are already 27000 feet up a mountain, but were they on their way up or down, or had they fell.
and if on the way down did they reach the top or turn around before reaching the top.
The fact that there was no camera nearby did not help sort out the puzzle

Perhaps we will never know
There is those that say getting to the top is actually halfway in an expedition and the whole is getting down.  Well there is argument for this.

But it would still be nice to know whether they actually got to the top or not ?
I suppose many people do not care
But who actually got to the top first??

Chris Bonnington quotes in the press "he hopes that the mystery of whether a British climber was the first to reach the summit of the world's highest mountain is never solved"

This story even made the front page of "The Times" newspaper" on May 4th 1999

#  Number of porters
on the Successful expedition led by Lord Hunt in 1953
how many sherpas were needed to carry the expedition funds

~ in 1953 paper money was not accepted in the area
so all expedition money had to be carried in coins of small denomination
as a result it took 30 porters just to carry the expedition money

#  Fastest Ascent

~  17 October 1998, Kagzi Sherpa of Nepal climbed Everest in 20 hours &
24 minutes to break Frenchman Mark Batard's longstanding
mountaineering record of October 1990 of just over 22 1/2  hours

# You think Snowdon is crowded

~  On 10 May 1993, nine expeditions reached
the summit of Everest at the same time,

~  The total number of climbers in the expeditions
that reached the summit that day was 40.

~ Edmund Hillary when asked to comment on this said
"they might as well have provided a bus"

# Best year - Worse year

~ 1993  129 people reached the summit
and 8 died,
a ratio of 16:1

~ 1996  98 people reached the summit
and 15 died,
a ratio of 6:1

# A true ratio of death rate on Everest

~ Statistically
for every five climbers that reach the summit,
one dies

# Do you have the technical skills ?
~ Well I do, Everest is technically not a hard climb, there is fixed rope and ladders on the difficult parts of the walk in and ladders on the Hillary step.
(A bit like the Alps then really, Over priced and Over crowded)
If I could do it, there must be many many more people out there that could also reach the top

# Are you fit enough
~ Well I must answer
NO to this one

~ yes they are,
they are roughly the same as the height of Everest in Meters
8000 to 1

?

?

~ Do I want to save for years then end up broke and owing money

?

?

# Other 8000 Meter Peaks

Click here to

List the extreme

world mountain index